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Schools across Tauranga are experiencing rising cases of vandalism on their grounds, with multiple attacks occurring in the last month.

The news follows the Avenues Kindergarten attack, which cost the local kindy an estimated $7000 - $8000 worth of damage.

Gate Pa School principal Rochelle Jensen says an “SUV complete with a trailer load” of rubbish was dumped onto the school grounds on Sunday, July 31.

“The full trailer and SUV load contained mattresses, chairs and play equipment,” says Rochelle.

She says that after posting what happened to Facebook, a whānau from the school “quickly and kindly” volunteered to dispose of it.

“We received multiple support messages. Our whole community was disgusted by this behaviour and showed their support on Facebook. Our school prides on looking after our environment and teaches our children to be kaitiaki - guardians of the environment.”

Rochelle says as a principal, this kind of behaviour is frustrating.

“It takes us away from our core business of supporting children's well-being and learning. Plenty of cameras and a supportive community committed to looking after our kura means that these incidents are limited.

“When they do happen we are usually able to identify the perpetrator and take appropriate action.”

Tauranga Intermediate has reported a slight increase in vandalism over the past month, and through their security measures have been able to meet with recent vandals.

“We have seen a recent rise in vandalism specifically over the last month, however it has is very, very minor,” says Tauranga Intermediate principal Cameron Mitchell.

He says the recent vandalism has included graffiti, and an instance where a bin was set on fire.

Bellevue School principal Anna Meehan says that their school has experienced graffiti that occurred across multiple buildings two weekends ago.

“We were notified by the neighbours that our school had been tagged. That’s pretty much all we know,” says Anna.

“It was all across the school. Several buildings.

“We have an amazing caretaker though, and he was able to come in and clean it up on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning before the children and teachers arrived.”

“It’s very frustrating. It just means our resources are going into cleaning up mess instead of going into the kids learning resources.

“We’ve notified the police and they are aware of what was written and may be able to attribute it to certain people, but we certainly can’t.”

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